Health and Wellness Program Managers

Brad

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health and Wellness Coaching Podcast. My name’s Brad Cooper. I’ll be your host, today’s interview is with Jennifer. Jennifer is a physical therapist who graduated from Loma Linda University in 1997. She’s been practicing physical therapy for 21 years, 10 years in outpatient, 11 years in the acute care setting and she’s worked for the same organization since graduation and something probably none of you can say for the same hospital where she was born. She’s been overseeing the wellness program for the hospital for the last five years. This has included everything from annual wellness screenings to wellness coaching, hiking programs, farm share programs, health challenges, you name it. She’s been mixing her time between the physical therapy and the wellness coordinator and it’s gradually been increasing your time focused on the wellness side and is about to go into that full time actually.

Brad

She’s been a certified wellness coach since 2016. She’s been married for 19 years. Enjoys sports, cooking, going out in the RV, and being active. She says that can include anything from hiking to weight training, aerobics, yoga. She loves to change it up and not do the same thing each day. Very exciting. I think those of you who are thinking, yeah, I’d kinda like to get into one of those coordinator roles will really love diving into this one. And for those of you who are overseeing a program for your organization or are leaning towards starting something along those lines, I think you could get a lot of good ideas from Jen. So with that, let’s go and jump in. All right, well we’re here with Jen. Jen, thanks for jumping in on this. She’s got some pretty cool insights. You’re going to enjoy this one. So Jen, first of all, tell us a little bit about your background and the role that you play in your organization.

Jennifer

Well, I’m a PT by trade, I always say, I’ve been practicing I think 21 years now, which seems like forever. Then, I’ve worked in the same hospital here since I graduated from PT school and I did about 10 years of outpatient PT and then progressed into the inpatient setting and over the last five years then I progressed into this wellness coordination role where it just kind of happened. We’d had a wellness program in existence that someone was retiring who was running it. They had asked me to take the program over, so I’ve slowly been transitioning more into the wellness field and less into the PT field. So that’s where I am now. I’m running a wellness program for about 2,400 employees.

Brad

So if we look back to how you got started you mentioned a little bit, but how did that actual transition take place? Because that’s a pretty interesting leap from treating patients as a physical therapist to all of a sudden taking over this program. So walk us through that a little bit.

Jennifer

We had this program in existence and I was helping do some wellness coaching. We didn’t really have a credential program as far as wellness coaching. It was just kind of a homegrown thing that we were trying to help our employees. We incorporated physical therapist, nutritionist, some nursing, a little bit of everyone since it is a hospital, we have a lot of qualified people to provide some education to our employees and so we were doing this and just kind of blossomed from there. Seemed like such a natural thing for me. It really was a good fit for something that I was looking for. After doing PT for awhile, you know, sometimes you’re just wanting something new, you know, kind of professionally trying to look for some new opportunities.

Jennifer

So it’s really exciting to work with the employees, get to know employees on a different level and trying to help them through some things. A lot of it for me at that time was doing things like musculoskeletal type injuries, helping them through, like where they could go. I’m not actually teaching them a PT, you know, regime of is this, I want you to do these exercises, but just giving them ideas on how to improve from that standpoint. And then of course within that we were educating on just general wellness things as well. So that’s kind of how it evolved for me. As the program kept going, the gal who was running it ended up retiring and so they looked to me and asked if I wanted to take the program, the whole entire program over, not just be a coach but run the whole program and be the coordinator.

Brad

Wow. Wow. So that’s going to make this next question pretty hard just because of the way things came together. We’ve got both current and future wellness coaches sitting out there listening to you and they’re thinking that sounds pretty cool. I like doing that. There’s no magic answer, there’s no magic path, but any suggestions for somebody who was thinking, maybe ways they can put themselves in a position where that type of a role could become an opportunity down the road.

Jennifer

Yeah. For me it just kind of fell into my lap per se, but you know, I know there’s probably coaches out there who maybe have some sort of professional medical background and in so many companies just about everyone is doing some sort of a wellness program. Yeah, I work in the medical industry, but there’s all kinds of ways and everyone’s looking for how to incorporate wellness.

Jennifer

So I think if you have passion and that desire to kind of do more than just be a one on one coach but actually run a program, there’s so many opportunities out there, you know, joining organizations like maybe WELCOA or going to some of the big conferences, the Journal of Health Promotion, that was a big one. There are so many different contexts that you could create through that that people are looking for individuals with that kind of passion, you know. That’s I think for wellness that the end all be all is really just having the passion for wanting to help people and then from there, you know, you might not necessarily have the perfect background but I think there are so many opportunities for someone who has that desire.

Brad

Good. And I almost sense you saying be great at where you are today and the doors will continue to open in a lot of ways. So good. Okay. So you and I met when you went through the wellness coach certification with Catalyst. What drove that? What created the interest in going to get certified? You’re a physical therapist, you’re doing some coaching. Why go get the certification?

Jennifer

It was really, you know, I’m running this wellness program and kind of telling myself, oh really, what kind of background do I have? What credential? I felt like maybe I needed to step up my game and really have something to show for it. I’m not, you know, just from a PT standpoint, what do I know about the whole big gamut of wellness? And I felt like you really needed that background to be able to, you know, prove to the hospital in general that I’m the right person for this role. But also to the people that I was working with and coaching that I have some kind of knowledge beyond just the PT realm. And so actually, one of my coworkers found the Catalyst Coaching ad somewhere and said hey, this might be something you’re interested in. And so when I sought it out, because I know there’s, there’s lots of different options, but it just seemed like a very good fit for me.

Jennifer

Yeah, I’m so glad that I went through and got certified as a coach because it’s really given me a lot of background and just a lot of baseline knowledge to be able to really feel like I know what I’m doing from a coaching standpoint. It’s not just, you know, like when we say from a PT standpoint, this is what you need to do. But from stepping back from the coaching or to the coaching piece and saying, okay, take off that expert hat and let me walk alongside you. And the program really showed me how to do that and to guide people rather than just direct them.

Jennifer

And so I’m so glad that I went through that because I think it also has helped so much in me looking for services for our employees, being able to be knowledgeable of what is a good product, when we’re looking for professional services to bring into our program that has been really beneficial. And being able to understand that and bring that to our executive team on what company we should go with based on my knowledge. You know, they don’t have any knowledge of coaching, but these are good qualities in this company. So I think that was really helpful. Not just personally but as a program itself.

Brad

That was really good. So again, you touched on this, but let me have you expand on just a little bit outside of the coaching per se. Did what you learned in the coaching certification change the way you treated patients because you were still treating patients part time? Did it change? We get a lot of feedback that the wellness coaching skills, actually are management skills. Did you see a way that those techniques with the team that you were managing were helpful? Any other aspects with your broader career? We know it helped with your coaching. Any other elements with your broader career or your patient care or your management were actually it kind of played a role?

Jennifer

Yeah, I think for sure when you’re new and you’re trying to learn the techniques and you know, I did find myself using it with patients and these patients that might be a little resistant, or just in general I mean it can work with anybody. So yeah, working with patients found it helpful in my home life for sure. And I know I’ve, I’ve heard that time and time again. I think I’ve even had, my husband said quit coaching me. I’m like okay, but you just see how it can be beneficial in all areas of life. But yeah, the coaches that I work with within our organization and teaching them some techniques, yeah, it definitely has helped all the way around.

Brad

So let’s take a step back and with your organization as a whole, so now we’re talking about wellness with wellness coaches a little bit differently about their potential within an organization. What role is wellness coaching playing within your broader wellness strategy?

Jennifer

We have always had some sort of wellness coaching like I said. Again, it was very elementary, I would say we’re just kind of homegrown and then once I went through the program and kind of understood that we need to do more, we need to step up our game and provide better coaching too. There’s more that can be provided for our employees and move them along a little bit better. So with that being said, we ended up creating a new health insurance plan that incorporated wellness into that plan. So if a member signed up for that plan, wellness was a required part of it, that was something new that we’ve just established over the last couple of years.

Jennifer

And so we have about 600 employees in that plan who are now going through the coaching and that’s kind of how we’ve really incorporated the bigger picture of coaching and not just a couple of sessions here and there. But really now we’re doing over 1200 coaching sessions throughout the year. That really impacted our employees and really have made a big different. So because we’ve been able to utilize an outside company to do that we’ve really been able to expand our reach and impact those employees so much more and I’m hearing every day, responses about how much it’s helped. So that’s really exciting and really makes you feel good that you were a part of that. You’re like, this is awesome that they really are seeing a benefit in this.

Brad

So cool. That’s got to be encouraging for the folks listening to. So a question I wasn’t planning to ask you, but you just kind of brought it to mind. You had the coaching prior from clinicians who are incredibly skilled, as you said, at educating people but weren’t trained as coaches. When you came back from the certification and started saying, I’m going to teach you guys some new things. We want to pull these new aspects in. Did you get pushback from the clinicians who were saying, well, now I know how to do this. I’m a physical therapist for example, I’m a dietitian for example. I’m a nurse, for example. Any pushback? And if so, how has that progressed? How did you handle it? Those kinds of things.

Jennifer

At that point we were kind of transitioning more to the bigger picture and using more of the outside coaches. But you know, at this point we do still have a couple coaches that are coaching on site here. Actually one of them after me coming back, she went through the certification, so now she’s utilizing it. So I think, you know, in talking to some of the other coaches, I’ve been able to show them some of these techniques and some of them have had some exposure but just never really the big formal picture. So from the staff, not a lot of pushback. I think they see value in it and not, oh yeah, I know what I’m doing and I have nothing more to learn. But I feel like people who are in that role and want to help people are really open to wanting to learn more and wanting more techniques or strategies for how to help people, at least in my environment. That’s what I’ve encountered.

Brad

Kind of bigger picture with the organizational setting. You obviously have a vision. You’re excited about this, you love this, you want to see the impact, you’re seeing the impact, you want to see more. What are some of the hurdles that you’ve had to come through, get across, that you know are coming down the road as an organization. Because a lot of these wellness coaches, they’re going to get into a company and they’re going to have these great dreams, they’re going to be super excited and they are going to hit the walls. They’re going to hit the hurdles. Any common ones you think they’ll see and then any suggestions for what they can do to overcome those.

Jennifer

That’s kind of a hard one. From my standpoint, we have had such good support from the get go of this wellness program. Our executive team has been completely supportive of this program and from every kind of crazy thing that we’ve brought their way they’ve been behind me. So I really struggle with that question. I know other people, other organizations, sometimes getting support from the higher level people or getting the money. They want to do wellness, but they really don’t want to throw money towards that program. That’s tough. But there are so many things you can do with little money. A lot of homegrown things, a lot of just small ideas, sometimes just starting small and letting some momentum go in getting more people involved on a very minimal level. Or low income level, then really sitting down with the executive team if they’re really having a hard time justifying and finding out what are their goals. You know, everything with goals comes down to productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism, that kind of thing.

Jennifer

And really seeing what their goals are and what their end is in trying to incorporate programs that really hit their goals. And that’s a good way to kind of bridge that gap of okay, this is what you want to see, let’s try this program and see what outcomes. You know, they always say with wellness programs that ROI or return on investment is always a difficult thing to kind of measure. So really being proactive and really looking at things and trying to do surveys and see what employees want, see what the execs want and trying to calculate some numbers so that you can present to the higher ups so that you can continue to justify and maybe build on the program.

Brad

That’s good. And by the way, for folks who are listening to this, if you are in that situation, we’ve got an ROI document that we can share with you that you can use. So feel free to reach out to us for that. And then I love what you said about starting small because the concept you have how many 2,400 employees? So you have 2400 employees, but let’s say you had 800 or 8,000. The idea of going from not doing coaching at all to coaching 8,000 people or 800 or 80,000, it’s a big number. Coaching’s not cheap, but it works better than anything else out there. So your idea of a small get it started is brilliant because even if you’re only coaching, let’s say three dozen people and you do the surveys and you look at outcomes, then you show it works and now they love paying for it because it’s like putting money in the stock market. When the stock market’s doing well, they know they’re going to get the return. So good stuff. Thank you. So let’s get a little more lighthearted here and obviously need to keep it anonymous, but can you share a fun story about the impact wellness coaching had with someone in your organization or someone you know?

Jennifer

Employees are always coming to me or as I pass them in the halls, they might share their experience with their session they had. Not so much a fun story, but I think a hopeful, inspiring story. I know a gal who was coached with us for the last couple of years and she was telling me of some really big barriers that she was having. When we think of wellness, you know, that typical nutrition, fitness, that kind of thing. That’s where everyone’s brain goes to when we know that coaching can be that, you know, the whole gamut, the whole wellness dimensions, all those seven, eight dimensions. However you’re looking at it, and she was really struggling on a religious standpoint. She came to me and she told me that her coach had looked at or worked with her on really her beliefs. She had been in a religious community for a long time and she was doubting her beliefs and if this was the path she wanted to continue on. But she was really struggling that the only support system she had were those people in that community and she was trying to instill some new values with her children and she was really struggling like, what do I do?

Jennifer

And so she got so emotional when she was telling me this story about what a big impact this coach had on her. And she wasn’t teaching her it was just that she was talking her through some things and she said that was so life changing for her and she said it just really made her look at things in a different way and she was able to move on and to me that was huge. I was like, you always hear, they got me exercising or I’m eating better, but that was just humongous for me and I just felt so heartfelt towards her, going that is just amazing. The same gal, then a year later is in a new position here at the hospital, and just overwhelmed with stress and said this year, that was her focus. And she said, I don’t know what I would have done without this.

Jennifer

And she was so thankful to me for allowing this program to be present. She’s like, I don’t know what I’d do. It’s just amazing how like in this department, I am so stressed, but I knew I had that outlet and I could talk to my coach and she was so helpful. So I think for me that was one of the most impactful stories that I could think of, just how much it affected her in some big areas of her life. And she’s like, you know I’m 15 pounds overweight. I don’t care, I need to get my stress level down. I need this life balance so I can function with my family. So that was a huge one for me and one that always sticks in my mind. So I thought I’d share that.

Brad

Wow, that was awesome. So now to Jen, we like to ask our interviewees, what do you have going on in wellness right now? So is there something you’re willing to share with us that you’re kind of struggling with and you’re working your way through and kinda tell us how that’s going and what you’re doing with it.

Jennifer

Oh, I think the really big thing I’m working on lately is just really life balance. I always envisioned wellness as a juggler and I’m thinking of all these balls that are in the air and the minute we put one focus on that one ball in the air and really pay attention to it, everything else falls away or all those balls drop and just trying to really keep everything in balance. Yeah, I know they come and go and the little things get warped but I’ve really been putting a big effort on my professional development, you know, doing these coaching certifications and I just got certified as a tai chi instructor and it’s exciting and it’s like addicting. You’re doing all this new stuff, but yet, okay, what about other parts of life? Home life and social life and all that. Just trying to make sure that I’m keeping everything balanced and rail and not putting too much focus on one thing. And I think that’s an ongoing thing. I don’t think that’ll ever stop. So I think that’s really been my focus of really trying to keep everything in balance.

Brad

Last question, you’ve got future wellness coaches out there. They’re sitting here across from you. They’re looking at you and say, you seem to have this figured out. You don’t have to tell us you don’t because none of us really do, but they want to know any parting words of wisdom and maybe you can split it in two. To the group that’s thinking, yeah, I might want to look into this. What would you say to them? And then the folks that are already certified, they may be doing a little bit of coaching but they’re trying to figure out what do I do to make it better to expand my career, those kinds of things. So you’ve got your future folks that are pondering. You got your current folks that are trying to read the map a little bit better.

Jennifer

Let’s see, so people who were thinking about coaching, I just really encourage you to do it. Just go for it. I think if you’re in that yeah, do I want to do it? Do I not? It’s definitely something that must be of interest to you and it’s such an amazing field and it’s such an emerging field that I think you’re setting yourself at a good time for just some good potential out there. I would just encourage you to just go for it. That would be my biggest recommendation. As far as current coaches maybe, like I’m doing more professional development, we all kind of get stagnant. You get to where you’re doing this a lot or yeah, I’m coaching, I’m not doing a lot of it or I’m not making a lot of money. Just keep going out there. I think an important piece is finding your niche, you know, really finding something that really speaks to an area that you can really focus on and really excel in. And then that way you know, those certain people come to you and you’re not trying to kind of do a broader area. Sometimes that really helps. That might give you some new energy to keep going and just keep working your way up.

Brad

I love it. Such good stuff. Jen, thank you so much. Really appreciate it and I think you’re going to have a lot of folks saying, Oh, I really love that one.

Brad

So many nuggets. I don’t know what jumped out to you, but a few of the things I jotted down as I was listening to this was one, if you’re in an organizational role on a wellness program, don’t try to convince the executives of what you want them to do, just like you wouldn’t as a coach. Instead, sit down with them, find out what are the executives goals, what are they working towards in the organization and then provide those things. Another one she talked about, they developed a specific insurance plan option for their employees built around coaching. Wow. You talk about ahead of the curve. I mean that that’s an organization on the cutting edge. That’s an organization that gets it. What a concept and then I had to laugh. She, I found it helpful in my home life in terms of the wellness coaching certification she went through.

Brad

hat is humorously something we hear over and over and over, whether it’s parents talking about it helps them engage with their teenagers a little bit more or spouses. I mean, just the stories. It’s interesting. Maybe we should start marketing this as a marriage certification, I don’t know. But anyway, some really good stuff in there and I hope you got a few that are applicable to you as well. Thanks for joining us in this episode of the Catalyst Health and wellness coaching podcast. We’re here for you anytime you know that you can email at Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com or we’ve provided a whole bunch of resources that compliment the things that we talk about in the podcast at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Thanks for spreading the news and thanks for helping others work towards what we like to call #BetterThanYesterday. Make it a great rest of the week and we’ll talk with you soon. On the next episode of the catalysts. Health and wellness coaching podcast.